UK snow set to spread southwards

South-west England, the Midlands and London were expecting their own snow showers following the earliest snowfalls to hit the country for 17 years, which had some areas blanketed by up to 6 inches yesterday.

Britons have been warned the wintry spell could last for at least 10 days, as biting winds come in from the North Sea and night-time temperatures plummet to minus 6C.

In icy conditions last night, a plane with 196 passengers overshot its landing position at Newcastle Airport.

No-one on board the Thomsonfly Boeing 737-800 from Lanzarote was injured, but the airport was closed for a time after the incident.

Parts of Northumberland saw the country’s heaviest snowfall yesterday, with 6 inches falling in places.

A similar amount fell in Aberdeenshire, 4.7 inches in the Scottish Borders and 4 inches in Durham, closing many schools.

Snow fell heavily overnight in North Yorkshire – one of the few places that has overstocked on grit. However many roads were clear in the county by the morning.

Cornwall on standby

Council staff in Cornwall were on standby to deal with any problems caused by the ice and snow predicted to affect the area over the next few days.

Highways crews are pre-treating 25 roads across the county, including the most popular roads and access to key sites, such as hospitals and fire stations.

“We usually aim to carry out salting before freezing occurs but Cornwall’s climate means that we are often faced with the problem of near freezing temperatures combined with showers,” said Jeremy Edwards, of the council’s Highways department.

“If the salt is washed off roads which have been treated by subsequent rain, sleet or hail showers, the road surfaces are likely to freeze.

“We can never guarantee that roads will be free of ice and would urge all drivers to ensure that they drive according to the existing road and weather conditions.”

“People go back inside their nice warm house and leave their car unlocked with the engine running.” West Midlands Police spokeswoman

Car accessories retailer Halfords reported huge increases in sales of antifreeze, screen wash, ice-scrapers and de-icer compared to this time last year, as drivers heed predictions of the big chill.

But police in the West Midlands warned motorists to lock their cars while removing ice from windows after a spike in thefts of vehicles left unattended with the key in the ignition.

A spokesperson for West Midlands Police said: “People go back inside their nice warm house and leave their car unlocked with the engine running,” she said. “And most will not be able to claim on the insurance.”

Gritting delays

Many councils are still waiting for suppliers to deliver thousands of tonnes of road salt so they can cope with wintry weather, the Local Government Association (LGA) said.

LGA economy and transport board chairman Councillor Peter Box said 3,300 gritters were already mobilised, but the fact that councils were still waiting for salt deliveries was “going to make a challenging time of year even more difficult”.

He added that councils had stockpiled significantly more salt than in previous years and that many councils had bought new gritting vehicles.

In addition, 91 per cent of councils in England and Wales would be providing regular online updates on their websites and nearly 25 per cent would be using Twitter.

Salt supplies

AA president Edmund King welcomed the Government’s recommendation that local highway authorities should hold 12 days’ salt supply, noting that many had only six day’s supply during last year’s freeze.

“We estimate that we might need about 3.3 million tonnes of salt this winter while UK salt production runs at approximately 2.4 million tonnes. Hence there is a potential shortfall of nearly one million tonnes which shows the need for more stocks to be imported.

“The Highways Agency has started taking delivery of 250,000 tonnes as a strategic reserve but local authorities cannot and should not rely on this to cover all their extra needs.”